Illinois

Illinois Exports and Foreign Investment

In 2024, Illinois exported a record $80.8 billion of goods to the world. In 2022, exports from Illinois supported an estimated 313 thousand jobs (latest data available).

Exports from Illinois and Jobs

• Illinois was the 5th largest state exporter of goods in 2024.
• In 2024, Illinois goods exports were $80.8 billion, an increase of 18 percent ($12 billion) from its export level in 2014.
• Goods exports accounted for 7.3 percent of Illinois GDP in 2023 (latest data available).
• Illinois goods exports in 2022 supported an estimated 313 thousand jobs (latest data available). Nationally, jobs supported by goods exports pay up to an estimated 18 percent above the national average.

Manufacturing Exports from Illinois and Jobs

• In 2024, Illinois exported $72.8 billion of manufactured products.
• Illinois exports of manufactured products supported an estimated 254 thousand jobs in 2022 (latest data available).
• The state's largest manufacturing export category is chemicals, which accounted for $15.7 billion of Illinois's total goods exports in 2024.
• Other top manufacturing exports are machinery, except electrical ($12.5 billion), computer & electronic products ($9.9 billion), transportation equipment ($8.3 billion), and food & kindred products ($5.1 billion).

Exports Sustain Thousands of Illinois Businesses many of which are SMEs

• A total of 22,704 companies exported from Illinois locations in 2022 (latest data available). Of those, 20,217 (89 percent) were small and medium sized enterprises with fewer than 500 employees.
• Small and medium-sized firms generated 29.2 percent of Illinois's total exports of goods in 2022.

Illinois Depends on World Markets

• The state’s largest market was Canada. Illinois exported $19.8 billion in goods to Canada in 2024, representing 25 percent of the state’s total goods exports.
• Canada was followed by Mexico ($13.0 billion), Australia ($4.7 billion), China ($4.7 billion), and Germany ($4.4 billion).
• Illinois’s exports to major world areas included:

 

• 55 percent of Illinois’s goods exports ($44.2 billion) in 2024 went to current FTA partners.  

Agriculture in Illinois depends on Exports

• Illinois is the country’s 3rd largest agricultural exporting state, shipping $13.7 billion in domestic agricultural exports abroad in 2022 (latest data available according to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture).
• Top Agricultural exports were:

	2022 Value	2022 State Rank
soybeans	$5.5 billion	1
corn	$2.9 billion	2
feeds and other feed grains	$1.8 billion	2
soybean meal	$981 million	1
vegetable oils	$650 million	1

International Investment Creates Jobs in Illinois

• In 2022 (latest data available), foreign-controlled companies employed 378,000 Illinois workers. Major sources of foreign investment in Illinois included the United Kingdom, Japan and Germany.
• Foreign investment in Illinois was responsible for 7.1 percent of the state's total private-industry employment in 2022.

Illinois’s Major Metropolitan Areas Benefit from Exporting
In 2023 (latest data available), the following metropolitan areas in Illinois recorded goods exports: Cape Girardeau ($144.2 million), Davenport-Moline-Rock Island ($6 billion), Paducah ($165.9 million), St. Louis ($13.8 billion), Bloomington ($210.1 million), Champaign-Urbana ($590.1 million), Chicago-Naperville-Elgin ($56.7 billion), Decatur ($2.7 billion), Kankakee ($2.2 billion), Peoria ($4.9 billion), Rockford ($4.4 billion), and Springfield ($140.6 million).